Review and comparison of tropospheric scintillation prediction models for satellite communications

An overview of the origin and characteristics of tropospheric scintillation is presented and a measurement database against which scintillation models are to be tested is described. Maximum likelihood log-normal and gamma distributions are compared with the measured distribution of scintillation intensity. Eleven statistical models of monthly mean scintillation intensity are briefly reviewed and their predictions compared with measurements. RMS error, correlation, percentage error bias, RMS percentage error and percentage error skew are used in a comprehensive comparison of these models. In the context of our measurements, the ITU-R model has the best overall performance. Significant difference in the relative performance of the models is apparent when these results are compared with those from a similar study using data measured in Italy.